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Aut-Aut

 
Richard Beck Review by Richard Beck 3 Published: 25 Oct 2025 Piazza Scammacca 1 Show Dates: 23 Oct 2025-26 Oct 2025

Using a philosophical work as the stimulus for a performance piece is an ambitious undertaking, but the result is on show at the Catania Fringe with Margot Theatre Company’s Aut-Aut, which arises from their reading of Søren Kierkegaard’s eponymous book.

An exploration of the world around them while they ponder the world within.

His writing is in two volumes, fitting for a work that explores the notion of choices through the simple proposition of “either/or”. Both parts present a style of existence. The first is that of the aesthete, a position that will lead a person to a state of psychological despair after recognising the limits of this lifestyle. This then leads to a second, ethical stage of rational choice and commitment.

How clearly this translates into the 50-minute movement performance, with only a couple of paragraphs of text, requires imagination and interpretation. The physicality of the piece is highly appealing, with the three characters engaged in a moto perpetuo of exchanges that embrace levels, floor work, and well-devised repeated motifs in various sequences.

Central to the performance is a large suitcase and its contents. It is embraced, discarded, lifted up, and thrown to the floor in ways that both accept and reject what it symbolises. Then its contents are explored, and one of the female cast members discovers numerous dresses, which she proceeds to put on one after another, only to take them all off and repeat the process. The suitcase is never fully opened, only unzipped enough to allow access. Next, a number of boxes are found within that must be constructed. Meanwhile, four differently sized picture frames capture the man’s face, as though he is a live portrait, but they also frame his surroundings as he looks through them to the world outside.

The characters manipulate their world and seek to interpret it. This can be seen as a search for meaning – an exploration of the world around them while they ponder the world within. Throughout, however, we are given space to place our own interpretation on what we see, considering how the soundscape, mostly of piano and cello music, affects the mood and relates to the actions.

Would this be immediately recognised as a piece inspired by Kierkegaard’s philosophical speculations? Probably not, but that is the nature of a stimulus. Its purpose is to inspire the work; to be the creator’s servant, not master.

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Either/Or is a choice: one way or the other. Three boys and three suitcases, from which images emerge that are created and undone, generating memories and recounting a generation: thus begins the journey towards life.